The Effect of Background Music on the Mathematics Test Anxiety of ...

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6 Anxiety Behavior Scale (STABS) was described above. <strong>The</strong> Achievement Anxiety Test (AAT) by Alpert and Haber is a 19-item scale which measures the facilitating and debilitating effects <strong>of</strong> anxiety on achievement performance. <strong>The</strong> Fear <strong>of</strong> Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE) by Watson and Friend measures social-evaluative anxiety and is composed <strong>of</strong> 17 true and 13 false keyed items. <strong>The</strong> Fennema-Sherman Math Anxiety Scale (MAS) contains 12-items and uses a 5-point Likert-type scale (Anderson & Sauser, 1995). Participants for the Rounds and Hendel (1980) study were females taking part in a mathematics-anxiety treatment program at a large Midwestern university. <strong>The</strong> 350 participants completed the MARS. In addition, 67 <strong>of</strong> the participants completed the STABS, AAT, FNE, and the arithmetic placement test, while 111 <strong>of</strong> the participants completed the MAS and the arithmetic placement test. <strong>The</strong> results <strong>of</strong> the factor analysis showed the first factor to be a measure <strong>of</strong> mathematics test anxiety or mathematics course anxiety. Rounds and Hendel labeled this factor Mathematics Test Anxiety. Items contributing to the second factor referred to everyday, concrete situations requiring some form <strong>of</strong> number manipulation. This factor was labeled Numerical Anxiety (Rounds and Hendel, 1980). A revised version <strong>of</strong> the MARS was used in the Plake and Parker (1982) study. This version contained 24 items from the original 98-item MARS. Other anxiety instruments used were the Achievement Anxiety Test (AAT) by Alpert and Haber and the State Trait Anxiety Invertory (STAI) by Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene. <strong>The</strong> STAI consists <strong>of</strong> two 20-item 4-point rating scales. <strong>The</strong> State Anxiety Subscale <strong>of</strong> the STAI measures anxiety specific to some situation such as taking a test. <strong>The</strong> Trait
7 Anxiety Subscale <strong>of</strong> the STAI measures a participant’s proneness to anxiety (Anderson and Sauser, 1995). A 48-item Mathematics Achievement Test (MAT) was derived from an item pool associated with the College Mathematics Placement Program <strong>of</strong> the American College Testing Program. Participants included 170 graduate students enrolled in an Introduction to Statistics course. Most <strong>of</strong> the participants were education students. A packet containing the AAT, revised MARS, STAI-STATE, and STAI-TRAIT was given to each student, along with the MAT, as they entered the classroom. <strong>The</strong> results <strong>of</strong> the factor analysis found 16 items <strong>of</strong> the revised MARS related to the activity or process <strong>of</strong> studying statistics. This factor was labeled Learning Mathematics Anxiety. <strong>The</strong> remaining eight items were concerned with the evaluation <strong>of</strong> mathematics or statistics learning and formed the second factor called Mathematics Evaluation Anxiety. <strong>The</strong> final study in this literature review that reported two factors <strong>of</strong> math anxiety was conducted by Alexander and Cobb in 1987. <strong>The</strong> participants, 197 Introduction to Psychology students, completed the 98-item MARS and a demographic sheet. <strong>The</strong> responses to the MARS items were factor analyzed using principal component analysis. <strong>The</strong>re were 34 items that reflected apprehension about taking a math test, receiving the results, or other course related activities. This factor was labeled Math Test/Course Anxiety. <strong>The</strong> second component, defined by seven items, reflected fear and apprehension about executing a numerical task. This factor was labeled Numerical Anxiety. Ferguson (1985) found three factors <strong>of</strong> math anxiety by using a 30-item version <strong>of</strong> the MARS scale. This study used 20 MARS items from the Rounds and Hendel (1980) study, ten items identified as loading heavily on Mathematics Test Anxiety and ten items
Page 1 and 2: The Effect
Page 3 and 4: iii Acknowledgements I would like t
Page 5 and 6: v Table of Content
Page 7 and 8: vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Factors
Page 9 and 10: CHAPTER 1 Rationale, Literature Rev
Page 11 and 12: 3 Spielberger (1985) described trai
Page 13: 5 Factor analyses. Researchers have
Page 18 and 19: 10 Table 1 (continued) Ferguson (19
Page 20 and 21: 12 to 66 students attending the Tex
Page 22 and 23: 14 the Missouri Mathematics Placeme
Page 24 and 25: 16 differences between the mean exa
Page 26 and 27: 18 students to one of</stro
Page 28 and 29: 20 background music on reading comp
Page 30 and 31: 22 Anxiety level. Researchers have
Page 32 and 33: 24 The final study
Page 34 and 35: 26 Definitions math-test-anxious st
Page 36 and 37: 28 group, while sections 002 and 00
Page 38 and 39: 30 Research Question 1. Does the us
Page 40 and 41: 32 CHAPTER 3 Results This research
Page 42 and 43: 34 Table 2 Hypothesis 1B: 2 (Anxiet
Page 44 and 45: 36 Hypothesis 2A The</stron
Page 46 and 47: 38 Table 3 Hypothesis 2B: Pre-Exam
Page 48 and 49: 40 group between lower anxiety and
Page 50 and 51: 42 Figure 2 Hypothesis 2B: Interact
Page 52 and 53: 44 CHAPTER 4 Discussion The
Page 54 and 55: 46 low anxiety students or the high
Page 56 and 57: 48 References Alexander, L., & Cobb
Page 58 and 59: 50 D'Ailly, H., & Bergering, A. (19
Page 60 and 61: 52 Mowsesian, R., & Heyer, M. (1973
Page 62 and 63: 54 Wolf, R., & Weiner, F. (1972). <
Page 64 and 65:
56 APPENDIX A Last 4 digits <strong
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